A Leopard has been captured by the Indian Forest Service following a series of attacks on livestock in the village of Pimpri Budruk in the Pune District of Maharashtra State, India. The village has suffered a series of attacks on Goats, Calves, and Dogs over the past month, but until now the culprit was unidentified. Then at about 5.30 pm local time on Friday 14 December 2018 a local woman spotted the Leopard drinking from a stream near the village, and the Forest Service was called in to deal with the animal. After some discussion with the local population it was decided that capturing the Leopard was the best option, and the animal, a female estimated to be about five years old, was shot with a tranquiliser dart and taken to a rescue centre in Manikdoh.
Veterinarians from the Indian Forest Service and Wildlife SOS examine a Leopard captured near a village in Pune District, Maharashtra on 14 December 2018. Asian News International/Twitter.
Leopards are considered to be Vulnerable under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, with the Indian subspecies, Panthera pardus fusca,
considered to be particularly vulnerable due to India's rapidly rising
Human population, which has resulted in agriculture and other Human
activities expanding into many former wilderness areas. For this reason
the Indian Forest Service usually try
to relocate Leopards that come into conflict with Humans to more remote
areas, preferably within national parks, though the extent to which
local people co-operate is variable.
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